Posted
by
timothyon Friday February 19, 2010 @10:33PM
from the contribute-better-translation dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Polish website Moje Jabluszko ran an experiment that proves the poor reliability of the liquid contact indicators (original, in Polish) installed by Apple in the iPhone. They performed three different tests to challenge the LCIs, which they recorded as a movie. They decided to mimic regular usage of the iPhone — meaning, you go outside where it could be cold or warm, then move inside in a building where temperature might be dramatically different, but still within covered conditions. So, they placed the iPhone in its box for one hour outside at -11 C, then moved it inside at room temperature for 24 hours. They repeated the experiment 3 times, and after the third cycle they could show that the LCI located in the audio jack plug started turning red! This is a clear proof that LCIs are not reliable and could turn red while the iPhone has been used under the defined environmental requirements defined by Apple. Here, only the condensing water could have been in contact with the sensor. In other words, even moving in and out during regular winter time will make you iPhone LCI turn red!" (In the tech specs for the iPhone, Apple rates the non-operating temperature range as -20 to 45 C.)

We do a lot of service on macbooks at work, and there's been times when we've taking a unit in for service that "won't turn on" and the user "has no idea why", only to find out they're drippy inside, and none of the liquid sensors are tripped.

I don't think Orwell has anything to do with putting a sensor strip that turns color if you dunk the computer in water, clearly in violation of the warranty. So, while it may be kind of a dick move, its not some secret authoritarian plot of doom.

i don't see why a manufacturer should give me a new laptop / phone / etc if i drop it in water. they cover defects not misuse. if they did cover things like that, the price goes up for everyone. i take care of my stuff and i'd rather not overpay up front so dummies can get a new laptop by dropping it in the tub.

And where is this going to end? Is the device going to keep a permanent record of its GPS coordinates and accelerometer readings? Is Apple going to start recording all the sounds around the phone to make sure that it wasn't used in the commission of a crime?

It doesn't end - Apple is the reflection of Steve Jobs, and Steve Jobs is a control freak. That's not necessarily a bad thing, so long as everyone that buys Apple products understands that to be the case, and accepts it: So long as you're content to let Apple tell you what's best for you with regards to those things that you buy from them, then you'll be fine, happy and content. And, for the majority of those that buy Apple products, that will be the case.

Apple has done an admirable job of creating a controlled computing environment, after all. They control the hardware, the OS, and so the software that runs on top of it. There's MUCH to be said for this approach - overall stability is greatly improved, for the most part. The "end user experience" is mostly consistent, which lends itself to ease of use and so, Apple customers are, for the most part happy: All they want is for their computers to "just work", and for the most part, that's what they get.

Apple has taken this approach, and applied it successfully to the iPod, iTunes, the iPhone - every time they branch out, they use the same methodology: Create an enticing product over which they have complete control, forever, make it fashionable, stylish, *the* thing to have. Apple is cool, after all, and so, too, are those that buy Apple products.

They've carefully cultivated this image, and gained a loyal, in some cases, fanatical, following.

And I say, with no cynicism at all - GOOD for them! There's obviously a market for this approach, and they should milk it for as much money as they can.

so what you say is as long as it is written in obscured place that the phone records all what you do it is fine that it does. The problem with this is that: they violate people's rights and are happy as the customers want to be cool as you do. They also violate common sense and quality controls as these sensors do not work properly es explained in the article. It does not surprise me all too much after all cool is not far away from fool.

They really have liquid sensors in them? That seems so... Orwellian. Does that not bother anyone else?

I can't quite figure out if this is flamebait, or if I'm just the only person who can't make a connection between liquid sensors in a consumer electronic device and a dystopian police state. If a liquid sensor bothers you so much, I hate to be the one to tell you, but... don't turn your iPhone around... there's even a camera!

According to some of the other posts on here, it seems like Apple has already covered this in the warranty agreement by specifying that the phone shouldn't be used in humid air where water can condensate.

Granted, that's a problem, but it is not some Orwellian violation of your privacy. Comparing a less-than-perfect LCI to the dystopian police state portrayed in 1984 is some of the most hysterical chicken-little "the sky is falling" bullshit imaginable.

According to some of the other posts on here, it seems like Apple has already covered this in the warranty agreement by specifying that the phone shouldn't be used in humid air where water can condensate.

That's not an enforceable clause anywhere I know of. The iPhone is marketed as a portable phone, among other things. It's not portable if you can't take it into environments people commonly go into. Ergo, this all falls under the implied warranty of fitness for purpose.

"Not using the phone where humid air can condensate" is a thinly veiled euphemism for "not taking the phone outside your house, ever".

This would not be a mobile phone.

Case in point:Summer: Miami, sunshine, excellent weather, 80% humidity, 35 degree Celsius. Houses are air conditioned: 25 degrees, 50% humidity. Perfect weather for the region in summer. Leave the house with your phone in hand and humidity will condense on it instantly.

Very true. For instance, by applying methods first outlined in the paper "Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis" (Statistical Science9: 429-438) to Orwell's Animal Farm, I discovered the following statement appears no less than 16 times!

The purpose of the sensors is to keep tabs to see whether you behaved well with the phone. It's a secret device (to most people) that can only be used against you to Apple's advantage. It demonstrates a lack of trust and good faith on the part of Apple.

Nobody's saying Apple is about to start torturing people... but why is this *not at all* Orwellian, which you're implying?

He said "to most people", and this is the absolute truth. The vast majority of people have no knowledge that mobile phones are equipped with these sensors, and there's absolutely zero on the packaging or the user documentation to indicate such in almost all cases when it would be trivial to do so, which is prima facie evidence of the manufacturer's intent to conceal the presence of the sensors from their customers. It's just like the practice of putting a Tip-N-Tell inside a crate containing expensive equipment in addition to the ones placed on the outside, to reveal if the shipper has mishandled the package and tried to cover it up - you want to make sure the shipper is honest, but you don't want the shipper to know you're watching him.

Just the same, I don't necessarily disagree with Apple or anyone else using them (even covertly), as long as they're absolutely reliable - warranty fraud is a real problem, but so is having a legitimate warranty claim denied just because you live in Florida and it got cold one day.

Yeah mod that up. The liquid sensors don't protect the devices in any way, other than to let you know you got the thing wet at some point. Many warranties are basically written to rule out the common things that would break a phone. It's especially annoying when you're paying a monthly fee for the warranty that adds up to the price of the phone or more in a year anyway, the least they could do is replace the thing when you break it even if you did drop it in your gin and tonic. If they make you agree that's not covered, fine, but then their sensors better be rock solid reliable. False positives are unacceptable.

Warranties are like insurance. You're paying some money for the feeling of safety. There are times when its worth it- when the replacement cost of the device is too high for you to comfortably pay. Buying one for something as cheap as a phone is stupid, but I can see it on larger purchases- say a car.

How the F can they sell this phone in northern climates? I live in WI and in Feb I will frequently go outside on a nice day to take a conf call and get some fresh air. A nice day being, at least, in the upper 20's.

Seriously dude, WTF?

/First/. post in like 5 years//Apple makes some very nice products, but their arrogance is huge.///Jobs was born is SW WI.

I'm lucky this season, but most winters it's considerably colder at this point in the year and I've got to FedEx my packets down to an Internet uplink in New York or they'll freeze and clog up the tubes.

Do not store the device in high or cold temperatyre. High temperatures can shorten the life of electronic devices, damage batteries, and warp or melt certain plastics. When the device warms to its normal temperature from a cold temperature, moisture can form inside the device and damage electronic circuit boards.

Avoid extreme temperatures. Always try to keep the battery between 59F and 77F (15C and 25C). Extreme temperatures reduce the capacity and lifetime of the battery. A device with a hot or cold battery may not work temporarily. Battery performance is particularly limited in temperatures well below freezing.

It doesn't break. The article isn't about breaking, it's about the environmental change triggering the sensors. The ramifications are that Apple may/will refuse warranty service if they have been triggered, even if the failure was not a consequence of the humidity/condensation.

So you take your phone out on a cold day, bring it back in, then three months later it dies of natural causes. Apple refuses to fix it because some condensation occurred three months prior.

Although it's rare for a device to die just from some slight condensation, it's technically outside the specification. The way the warranty is worded, though, it would appear that they can only refuse to service devices for actual damage caused by the out-of-spec environment, not just because the device ever was in that environment. However, the burden of proving that the condensation didn't cause the issue is probably on you.

As anyone who wears glasses could probably tell you, if you go outside for a while, then come back inside (mimic the conditions of the 'experiment'), the glasses are highly likely to fog up with condensation. Is this not a liquid?

That's the point of the article. The sensors are working fine, but they trigger even when operating the iPhone well within the specified temperatures. In essence, using the iPhone as intended may still void your warranty.

So... where exactly do you get any place where you NEVER have noncondensing humidity? I mean hell, I live in Colorado and it's dry as a bone here most of the time, and my glasses still fog up. Putting a clause in a warranty that essentially says "You're not covered if you actually use this device as advertised and intended" is immoral, and I believe illegal in many places.

As anyone who wears glasses could probably tell you, if you go outside for a while, then come back inside (mimic the conditions of the 'experiment'), the glasses are highly likely to fog up with condensation. Is this not a liquid?

You have to obey them all, all the time. The sensor is simply just another component that might fail if you exceed these parameters. And it sounds like pretty convincing proof that you were in condensation conditions if the sensor fails by turning red.

I live in the tropics, I go for a motorbike ride with my phone in my pocket for a couple of hours - 33 degrees and stupidly high levels of humidity. Stop all nice and stinky at my usual coffee place with the air-conditioner running inside at 18C - instant condensation. Not just on metal items - even your skin can become clammy for a brief time.

That said - we buy our phones outright in this part of the world. The manufacturer warranties normally run anywher

Wow - why do they even sell them here in Canada, then? Am I not supposed to take it outside below -20C? That's almost every night for half the winter!
In fact, though, I've had my iPod Touch (1st Gen) for about 3 years, and I take and *use* it outdoors in -30 to -20 temperatures all the time - no problem. It's actually survived a dunking in the bathtub, too.

You should be alright as long as you play some movies on the phone before putting it in your pocket, and play movies on the phone while it's in your pocket before going inside.

The problem is when the partial pressure of H2O exceeds the dew point. If you raise the temperature by moving into a new volume of air, then you get the ppH2O of the new volume of air, which is instantly cooled to near the temperature of the device, possibly crossing the dew point and causing condensation. If you raise the temperatu

While it's true that some portion of your customers are going to lie when they say there has been no water intrusion, including, at extra cost a device aimed at proving that your customer is lying on every device is unfair. Let alone close to the external extremedies of the device.

Here's a prediction: First they will deny the problem, and try to cast doubt on the testing methodolgy, then they will acknowledge the problem but claim that it only occurs in a very limited set of circumstances and offer restitut

>> While it's true that some portion of your customers are going to lie when they say there has been no water intrusion, including, at extra cost a device aimed at proving that your customer is lying on every device is unfair. Let alone close to the external extremedies of the device.

Well said. Good contribution to the thread.

>> Here's a prediction: First they will deny the problem, and try to cast doubt on the testing methodolgy, then they will acknowledge the problem but claim that it only occurs in a very limited set of circumstances and offer restitution but only for those who complain loudest.

Decent editorial insight. The kind of thing that sparks great conversation.

>> Then they'll make a minor change that doesn't actually fix the problem and claim it is fixed (oh and raise prices to cover this change). They'll stall at every step. This seems to be right out of the Apple customer service manual, and they're not the only ones (but they are some of the worst). No different to scratchable iPod minis, or cracked laptop cases.

Still decent, but you're starting to get worked up!

>> Fucking horseshit.

Yep. You're working yourself up, son!

>> But it's Apple, it just works, right? Come on fanbois, mod me into oblivion. I don't give a shit.And then you just slide down hill. If you were to be modded down, I don't think it'd have been because of your opinions / insights above. It's the fact that you seem to be asking for it right here. Maybe you're proud of your dissent and want to think the comments are controversial? Sorry, no. They grabbed my attention and got me thinking. But now I've forgotten everything you've said because of your silly little outburst.

The question is whether the LCI's can be triggered by exposure to condensation, moisture, etc., which won't actually harm the device. Clearly those LCI's are more sensitive than the device they're attached to to water damage. If the manufacturer refuses to honor a warranty because of a LCI positive reading, but the damage to the device wasn't in fact caused by water, then you ought to be able to sue them for breach of contract.

I had a cell phone battery fail (because of a defect), but the manufacturer wouldn't replace it because the LCI was tripped on the phone. The failure mode wasn't one that would have been caused by water damage.

As someone who repairs electronic devices often debugging the device using a can of freeze spray I can confidently say that sensitive electronics will happily keep running with not just condensing mist forming on the surface, but out right water droplets, providing these don't combine and start running down the device.

Water on electronics isn't an issue till it connects across adjacent electrical traces. Even then water that is caused by condensation is very pure and has an incredibly high resistance so eve

Depending on your source, and whether or not the water is highly chlorinated, it can be pretty non-conductive. A couple of examples of this:

The town I used to live in got its water from a reservoir. They lightly chlorinated it, and then pumped it around town. I had a few accidents involving beer/soda and electronics, but in all cases, immediately unplugging the power/battery, disassembling, rinsing well with tap water, and letting dry for a couple days, the electronics worked fine. I had a keyboard with soda inside the membrane, and 8 years later it still works.

I taught high school science for 5 years, and we had a fairly simple conductivity tester - a lightbulb with the circuit broken. The setup had a goose-neck, with two exposed probes. You plugged it into a standard 120V outlet, and when the two probes, about 1/2" apart, were dunked in a conducting solution, the light bulb lit up. Standard tap water in that town did NOT light it up. Add 0.1g of salt to 100ml of water, and it light up just fine.

It's true that pure water won't hurt electronics. And condensed water is likely to be damn pure. Yes, it disassociates into ions. But the concentration is so small, and the distance between the ions so large, that it's essentially non-conducting.

The purpose of the sensor is not to detect water. The purpose of the sensor is to give Apple and the insurance company a technical strawman to point to as to why you're not gonna get the warranty replacement you've morally and legally got coming.

"We're not honoring the warranty because the machine says you've been bad," sounds sbetter than "We don't wanna honor your warranty 'cause that would cost us money to live up to our obligations."

It's the same function polygraphs, e-meters and other "lie detectors" s

I went into an Apple store and got my original iPhone replaced 10 months after buying it because I dropped it two stories onto concrete. It still worked, but it wouldn't take a charge and the main button was constantly pressed. I admitted to the damage vector (it was a bit hard not too -- major scratches and dings on the aluminum). They tested my phone, verified that it wouldn't take a charge, wiped my current phone, swapped the SIM into a new phone, activated it, and sent me on my way.

This just means they need more separation between the electrodes of their submersion sensor. Which is a problem in a small device.

To sense water reliably, while ignoring condensation, you need contacts some distance apart and some distance from a surface. The distances needs to be bigger than a water droplet. The size of water droplets is limited by surface tension. About 0.3 inch is probably big enough. In a tiny device, getting an air space that big is tough.

> This just means they need more separation between the electrodes of their submersion sensor. Which is a problem in a small device.

The sensor is a chemical one. It's a patch of off-white printing that turns red when wetted.

> To sense water reliably, while ignoring condensation

Why? Condensation IS water. Water affects electronicsin the real world. Water is generally bad for electronics in the real world. Very very tiny electronics (like you referred to indirectly above) are affected even more. The tou

There are no electrical connections on a liquid sensor - it is just a pad that changes color when it is exposed to water - or even high humidity. The purposes of this is to detect that a phone has been exposed to water, which will really screw it up. Thus, phones that have color-changed liquid sensors are not eligible for warranty replacement.

This is nonsense. Warm air carries more moisture than cold air. When taking a cold device into a warm room, the air will enter the device, cool down and water will start to condensate inside the device. Water from condensation is just as bad as water from a spill.

The liquid sensor is right to go off, as it should since many electronic gadgets/laptops were destroyed this way.

Your typical keyboard is quite waterproof. I've spilled coffee on mine several times. Into the dishwasher it goes. I let it dry for about a week and then it's just fine. (Yes I have a backup keyboard). I have done this several times now and the keyboard still works fine.

As a technician at a rival company to ATT in the US, I can tell you that the LDI or LCI is usually just that, an indicator. We see one of those tripped and then dig deeper into the device to see if there is further evidence that the device has been exposed to abnormal conditions, like a toilet. Some of the non-full service stores may not look so deep, but all of ours will take a device completely out of it's housing before making the determination. We're really not out to screw the customer, unless he's a douche.

You can get condensation without exceeding the relative humidity limit (incidentally what other computer has a humidity limit?). Just put a very cold iPod in a warm pants pocket. As long as the iPod is colder than the dew point, then you get condensation.

The environment the phone was in was noncondensing. The environment IN the phone was condensing but how is the consumer to control that?

Consumer devices need to be built to withstand the normal environments they will be used in. Surprise, people sometimes come into a warm building from the cold outside.

If Apple gave half a crap about their users, they'd spring for the penny it would cost to shoot the insides with a bit of waterproofing spray rather than warranty void excuses before welding the back on.

If Apple gave half a crap about their users, they'd spring for the penny it would cost to shoot the insides with a bit of waterproofing spray rather than warranty void excuses before welding the back on.

The problem isn't that the phone will break from these it is the fact that it will trip the sensors. The problem is, these indicator things are terrible indicators of a problem. While I can see the point in reducing claims from someone who went swimming with their iPhone, someone who got their iPhone slightly damp months ago and comes in with a different problem still can't use their warranty.

I believe the sensor is 3M Material 5559, which is a kind of humidity indicator [wikipedia.org]. Wiki says, that these are usually made from Cobalt(II) chloride, which in pure form turns from blue to red powder by absorbing water.

I believe the sensor is 3M Material 5559, which is a kind of humidity indicator [wikipedia.org]. Wiki says, that these are usually made from Cobalt(II) chloride, which in pure form turns from blue to red powder by absorbing water.

There was no damage involved, simply a triggering of a LCI. The problem isn't that the devices can be damaged by condensation, it's that the LCI's are more sensitive than the device itself to condensation!

It seems like you could put it in an airtight
plastic bag when going from cold to warm. When the
bag is dry, it's safe to remove.

Of course, there's
the problem of air in the bag. You need to make sure
the bag is in close contact with the device or else
carry dessicant around with you. Of course, this is an Apple
device. Somebody ought to make a stylish little box
that encloses it perfectly.

There are already shrink-on plastic shields to protect
the screens and various other enhancements that surround
you